Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient India.....2

Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient India: "Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient India
URL: http://www.cerc.utexas.edu/~jay/india_science.html

Astronomy
* Earliest known precise celestial calculations:
As argued by James Q. Jacobs, Aryabhata, an Indian Mathematician (c. 500AD) accurately calculated celestial constants like earth's rotation per solar orbit, days per solar orbit, days per lunar orbit. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, no source from prior to the 18th century had more accurate results on the values of these constants! Click here for details. Aryabhata's 499 AD computation of pi as 3.1416 (real value 3.1415926...) and the length of a solar year as 365.358 days were also extremely accurate by the standards of the next thousand years.
* Astronomical time spans:
The notion of of time spans that are truly gigantic by modern standards are rarely found in ancient civilizations as the notion of large number is rare commodity. Apart from the peoples of the Mayan civilization, the ancient Hindus appear to be the only people who even thought beyond a few thousand years. In the famed book Cosmos, physicist-astronomer-teacher Carl Sagan writes '... The dates on Mayan inscriptions also range deep into the past and occasionally far into the future. One inscription refers to a time more than a million years ago and another perhaps refers to events of 400 million years ago, ... The events memorialized may be mythical, but the time scales are pridigious'. Hindu scriptures refer to time scales that vary from ordinary earth day and night to the day and night of the Brahma that are a few billion earth years long. Sagan continues, 'A millennium before Europeans were wiling to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus b"